3 weeks in keggerator on serving pressure

[KillerDawg]

I have had an IPA kegged and in my keggerator on CO2 at serving pressure now for three weeks and there is no carbination to it at all. I have another kegged Hef tapped in the same keggerator and it is great. My third tap has an ale and it's been on CO2 for a week and it shows no carb yet. Not very concerned yet on that one.

I have checked for leaks, made sure the line is clear, tank is full and all the valves on the manafold are open but it's still not carbonating.

What am I missing?

 

[djsethall]

Check valve stuck? Have you tried releasing some pressure and seeing if it is filling up with CO2?

 

[Dogphish]

what CO2 pressure and what temperature?

 

[KillerDawg]

My coke keg has one of the release valves that you cant open & close it from what I was told. Is there a way to open it with out damaging it? If not I will pull it out empty the pressure and fill it to make sure that it is filling.

CO2 pressure is set at 10 pps & the temp is at least below 40. I'll have to take a reading to be more accurate.

Thanks for the help this is stumping me.

 

[day_trippr]

Not much you can do with that type of pressure relief valve. It'll work when it needs to (well, hopefully!) but otherwise it's just a useless bump on a lid. If you spray the exposed top with a rather thick soap/water mix and you don't see any bubbles, forget about it, it's not causing a problem.

Anyway...with CO2 pressure on the keg, if you rock it back and forth (with some vigor) on its base, can you hear CO2 entering the keg? It'll be obvious if it's happening. If not, somewhere you have a blockage, and the first place to check is that the gas QD is actually pushing the gas poppet down enough to open it.

Cheers!

 

[djsethall]

Good Idear Tripper. I spaced that stuff off

 

[sudsmcgee]

I had an issue where sanitizer or beer made its way back into the co2 shutoff valve and froze solid in my kegerator. I had thaw it to get any pressure on my kegs. Make sure nothing is frozen.

 

[KillerDawg]

I'll have to wait to check that it's not frozen until I get back from San Fran but I don't think that is the problem since all my taps run off the same manifold and the other taps are running fine. I keep thinking its a leak issue with that one keg. When I get back I will check it again with soapy water.

Thanks for all your ideas on correcting my problem it's been a great help.

 

[audger]

unless its a large enough leak that the gas is escaping faster than the regulator can keep up, a small leak shouldnt have any effect on carbonation (it would only be a waste of gas).

what you can do is take the gas-in valve off the keg, and use a screwdriver or something to depress the poppet valve. you should have gas escaping. if not, then its not getting to the keg for some reason and you can investigate further.

 

[sudsmcgee]

I'll have to wait to check that it's not frozen until I get back from San Fran but I don't think that is the problem since all my taps run off the same manifold and the other taps are running fine. I keep thinking its a leak issue with that one keg. When I get back I will check it again with soapy water.

Thanks for all your ideas on correcting my problem it's been a great help.

FWIW, I had one keg that carbed and one that didn't also from a single manifold. For whatever reason only one line was frozen. I quickly hit the manifold with a torch and it started to flow air right away.

 

[KillerDawg]

Sorry for the delay in giving an update to everyone but I've been very busy and just haven't had the time. Once I got back in town the last time. I checked everything again and found no leaks anywhere but I did take it off the manafold and put it on a single CO2 bottle. I still kept it in the kegeratore and shock the hell out of it and left it alone for another week. After that it started to carb and now it's perfect. I put it back on the manafold and it's holding carb and tasting great. I have no idea what happened but am glade it's drinking great.

Thanks for all your help and suggestions.